


BossBitch!Delphine; Minific(s)

by Androgymaus



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-03-24 23:22:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3788131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Androgymaus/pseuds/Androgymaus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short drabbles of how Delphine goes from Puppy to Boss Bitch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> BossBitch!Delphine inspires me to no end.

It is bigger than them. The oppressive gravity of the world they are traversing easily overpowers the weightlessness of love; she understands that now. Her feet are planted firmly on the ground when Marian finishes her monologue. Delphine knows everything, and her options are painfully limited. She feels the walls erecting around her heart, the iciness of it causes her to shiver. Her body made its decision before her mind had time to process all the information laid out before her. This is war, and her love would be the casualty. But Cosima and her sisters will be free, even if she has to sacrifice all that she cares for to achieve it.


	2. Chapter 2

Her dreams give voice to desires she dare not entertain in waking hours. She is barraged with romanticized images of herself as a broken warrior coming home, crumpling for the first time since the battle began into the warm, open arms of her lover. Cosima holds her tight, tells her that the war is over, and their life together is only just beginning. 

Her dreams are a dangerous place. They create fissures in her carefully crafted walls. They make weakness of her necessary sacrifices. They make her soft in a world where she must be impervious; wholly bullet proof.

She is clinical in attempting to remedy herself of this malady; insists Dr. Nealon write her a script for benzodiazepines. She takes two every night and they have an amnesic affect; if she dreams they are left in the winding maze of her subconscious never to be recalled again. It is in this place that she carefully buries her heart, and secretly hopes one day the sisters of LEDA will truly know safety, so that she may give it to Cosima once again.


	3. Chapter 3

Intimidation is exhausting. It goes against her very nature, though she is learning to make a home of threats; nestle into whatever reprieve they provide her. For every intimated act of violence she is able to hold one more vicious predator at bay from dissolving LEDA. It is this knowledge that keeps her cold but moving. She needs to keep in constant motion for the risk of collapse is ever present. 

Topside board rooms make her insides whorl in disgust. No smile is to be trusted and all allegiances are destined to end in the kind of infidelity that leaves bodies behind. She feels wildly out of her depth, though Marian is there to guide her through this unsavory world. She marvels in a sort of wary exaltation at the grace with which the older woman navigates these minefields of power plays that shift geopolitics at their foundations. Marian's resolve is steel reinforced by a mother's love. The very notion sounds utterly ridiculous when she considers it, but no woman would put herself in the kind of danger Bowles does on a daily basis otherwise. It is this keen understanding of love that prompted the topside member to bring Delphine into the fold. Delphine took on this role understanding that her affection for Cosima made her a known entity, easy to motivate and manipulate. 

She bought a whole new wardrobe the day after Marian met her in Frankfurt; the same day she was appointed director of DYAD. Her suits are both a shield and a weapon. Every pair of heels she purchased were no less than three inches tall. As she shakes hands with a man who has a shrewd look in his eyes and salacious smirk on his lips, she is satisfied towering over him using her height to physically impose influence. Though sophomoric and transparent a method as it seems, it works; it always has. She has often used her body as a tool.

Her bones are neither brittle nor strong, but she will weld steel to her spine to protect LEDA... for a sentiment as foolish and dangerous as love.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think my tenses might be fucked up. If anybody wants to proof read for me in the future, that would be dope. Thank you for reading!

Delphine grew up with wine at the dinner table. It has been ever present in her life, and if someone had asked she would struggle to recollect exactly when she had her first sip. She knows only that she must have been very small. 

She remembers being a young girl of six, sitting on her father's knee after dinner, his laughter bellowing through out the house vibrating in her tiny chest. He would share wine with her from his glass. The liquid would fill her with warmth as it pooled in her belly, a pleasant flush bloomed across her cheeks, heat loosening her short limbs. Wine reminded her of joy; home cooked meals, her mother's smile and older brother's playful teasing. 

Scotch held no such affection in her heart. She had learned to drink spirits from affluent older men with unsavory designs on her modesty. It was a drink she sipped with smiles that never reach her eyes, all the while planning her next move. The liquor, she felt, was best suited to scheming and unhappiness. 

As she raises the low ball glass to her lips, surveying photos of Cosima and her new love interest, she cannot remember the last time she had a glass of wine; weeks, perhaps months? She exhales plumes of distilled heat; bitter, fiery remnants, and thinks of Cosima's bottom lip caught between her teeth, painted red with merlot. Her keen eyes studied Delphine then. Cosima's attention sent the blonde into a sweet delirium.  
Wine was for lovers, she muses, and scotch - Delphine tosses the photos on her desk - scotch was for other people entirely.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alison and Delphine chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No proofreader, sorry about that. If anybody wants the honor, hit me up.

“How do I look, Dr. Cormier?” the clone spun in place; her clothing dark and hair uncharacteristically wild. 

“Please, call me Delphine, and you look…” Delphine gave the woman a once over in appraisal, “passable, very much like Sarah.” Truth be told, if Alison had approached Delphine in those clothes, she would be hard pressed to tell the difference. The thought unsettled her; she’d fallen for a clone swap once before, however momentarily. She hoped to fool dangerous people who had questionable intentions with one now, “How do you feel?”

Alison fretted; she tapped her fingers against her thigh in a way that was solely her own. She had Cosima’s face, but the more time Delphine spent with the woman the more their differences became readily apparent to the doctor. Cosima was a woman uniquely possessed, Delphine marveled, then pushed the thought out of her head as quickly as it came. 

“Nervous, but ready!” Alison responded with enthusiasm. Where Cosima’s hands interpreted her words through an elaborate dance, Alison’s face conveyed her meaning. Delphine was certain the clone was able to transmit morse code by eyebrows alone. 

“I’ve had to play Sarah before, you know, I’ve even hornswoggled her mother!” Alison cocked her hip, quite pleased with herself. 

“I’m sorry, I do not know the word... _hornswaugle_?” Delphine was confused by her choice of words, but it seemed Alison enjoyed these identity swaps. Perhaps she saw them as a game? Did all her sisters treat these deceptions with the same carelessness? Had Cosima ever taken on one of her sister’s identities? She could not imagine it.

“Oh, sorry, it’s a colloquialism! It means to trick.” Alison placed her arms in an L formation over her torso and chest; free hand tugged her earlobe. It was a trick of cognitive dissonance; Sarah’s clothes and face, but the suburban mother’s prim gestures. Would they be able to fool Ferdinand? Had this woman truly _“hornswoggled”_ Sarah’s mother, as she said?

“Ah, that is impressive, Alison. Siobhan Sadler does not strike me as a woman easily deceived.” Mrs. Sadler was a smart and inherently suspicious woman, Delphine would have to take solace in that fact. Alison had succeeded in the past and would again. They had no other choice.

“Well, theatre is in my blood!” she smiled brilliantly. 

“I can see that.” Delphine found herself returning it, and wondered exactly when she had last genuinely smiled. These women were all charming in their own way. Cosima wanted to protect her sisters, had made Delphine promise she would love their unconventional family, but they made that act easy, didn’t they? 

“I guess your assistant will be seeing me to the room now so I can go over my blocking?” Alison turned to leave Delphine’s office. She walked on the balls of her feet, likely due to dance classes as a child. The woman was agile. If Ferdinand caught on to their fraud, would she be able to defend herself against him? No, Delphine had her guards in the room, Alison need not fight if it came to that. 

She shook her head in a futile attempt to clear her mind of apprehension, “Yes, of course.” 

The usually ebullient housewife edged her way out the door, but stopped at the entranceway and spoke in a tone the doctor found difficult to stomach; condolence,“Delphine…I know this is none of my business, but…I’ve seen the way you look at Cosima...” there was an uncomfortable pause as the woman looked Delphine in the face, then sighed, “for whatever it’s worth...I’m sorry.”

“Ah...hmmm,” the french woman responded in sounds rather than words. Her smile was as brittle as she was uncomfortable; it did not reach her eyes. She had never been a particularly sentimental woman, but the wounds in her heart were still fresh, making the conversation difficult to bear. She averted her gaze to the desk, her hands clenched together atop it, and attempted to reign in her emotions. 

“And Delphine?” Alison’s face was awash with compassion.

“Yes?” she replied. Her voice reflected every bit of insecurity in her heart in that single, fragile sounding word. She loathed it. 

“Thank you...for all of this...” Had anyone ever thanked her for helping since this sordid chapter of her life began? Had she ever deserved gratitude? Was she helping? Was she doing the right thing? She could not say, and she could not afford to dwell on it. Delphine’s throat burned as if the unshed tears were physically choking her; a spectre of repressed emotion with it’s hands around her neck. 

She held her breath and nodded in response, not trusting herself to form words. Her eyes shone, betraying her facade of composure.

Alison channeling Sarah, turned and stalked her way out of the office and down the hall.


	6. Swan Song

The world fades from light to black and back while you swim in and out of consciousness. A shiver runs through you. You grow colder. Your thoughts are like muffled whispers; difficult to understand, impossible to latch on to. The smell of iron permeates the air, and overwhelms your senses; it makes you nauseous. The upper right quadrant of your abdominopelvic region is wet and sticky, you are bleeding out. Those words repeat in your head: upper right quadrant, abdominopelvic region. Perhaps you will survive. As a figure you can barely register looms over you pointing a gun in your face, you come quickly to terms with the futility of hope. Your swan song is coming to a close, and Cosima's life is still very much in jeopardy. There is no room left for panic, your body is no longer capable of it as key processes begin to shut down. Your eyes drift shut, your breathing slows. You are tired; oh so tired. The woman you love above all else in this world is in danger, but you will never know the stress of peril again. You feel the press of a cold barrel to your forehead and are overcome with certain relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still no beta. i cheated writing this piece. it's pretty much what happened to me after being stabbed. 
> 
> poor delphine.  
> she deserved better.  
> she will be missed.


End file.
